


Two-Faced

by TK_DuVeraun



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route Spoilers, M/M, Margrave Gautier's A+ Parenting, Sylvain is too clever for this plot, Sylvain runs away, TWSITD - Freeform, don't get excited this is very conservatively tagged, minor violence against animals, rip everyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:08:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 18,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23457559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TK_DuVeraun/pseuds/TK_DuVeraun
Summary: Byleth:You didn't have the courage?Sylvain:No... But if I thought I could have escaped, I would have tried. I'd leave behind House Gautier and the life of a nobleman...and anybody who knew I had a Crest.Sylvain takes advantage of the Tragedy of Duscur to run away.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 83
Kudos: 190





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sunnybone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunnybone/gifts).



> This is... Exactly what it says on the tin. No idea how long it'll be. I'm basically just jumping to the good scenes, so comment if there's something in particular you are DYING to see.

Sylvain was a terrible person. A worthless, Crest-bearing shell whose heart would have been black if he’d had one. He was old enough to ride to Fraldarius alone. The soldiers that would have escorted him were needed at the border. As much as his father disparaged the people of Sreng as mindless barbarians, they were more than smart enough to take advantage of the Kingdom’s chaos in the wake of King Lambert’s assassination, so Sylvain rode alone to the funeral of Glenn Fraldarius.

Rode part of the way. In Itha, Sylvain caught a rabbit in a trap. He splashed the small animal’s blood on his horse and smeared what remained on his spear. With the bloody blade, he cut a corner off his cloak. Though it was difficult to make it look natural, he snagged the corner on his riding tack. He tugged it a few times, testing his work to ensure it was secure. Of course, once it was, he realized the placement was unbelievable. It took an hour to stick it on his stirrup in a way that both looked natural and would hold until the mare was found.

Heart in his throat and shivering from fear, Sylvain watched his mare sprint away from his slap with his clothes and provisions still in the saddlebags. Faerghus was preparing for war. Faerghus was grieving. Faerghus didn’t have soldiers to search for Gautier’s probably-dead youngest son. Duke Fraldarius would assume Sylvain couldn’t be spared from the border, even as young as he was. Margrave Gautier wouldn’t know what happened until someone both knowledgeable enough of horseflesh and honorable enough found Sylvain’s mare. If he was lucky, some poor farmer would try to make her a plow horse.

\---

His first plan was to grow out his hair and pretend to be a girl. He knew the speech patterns and mannerisms well-enough to pass, but the depth of his voice would betray him, even if he didn’t inherit the same shoulders and height as Miklan. His backup plan was to travel as far South and West as he could before his money ran out. His clothing and trappings were as plain and non-descript as he was allowed to wear, as Heir Gautier, but Sylvain didn’t dare sell anything until he reached Daphnel territory in the Leicester Alliance. 

In Daphnel, Giuseppe von Enns, a lesser cousin from House Arundel sold his plain gold brooch and necklace. Arundel territory was West enough from the Alliance and North enough from his intended destination that no one would question it. Hopefully. It was risky going by a variant of his middle name, but it had to be something familiar for him to remember it in a crisis. Claiming to be from the Enns family was the true stroke of genius. After Sylvain’s mother died, the Margrave had sent a letter of interest to Arundel only to hear that the Enns branch family had run off with a small fortune, presumably to Goneril territory.

If questioned, which he didn’t intend to be, he would say his mother was dead, true, he’d grown tired of life on the border, true, and then he’d cover any follow ups with a blank stare off to the side until the curious person got uncomfortable and changed the subject. Keeping his story as close to the truth as possible was a lesson he’d learned at his father and Miklan’s hands. He’d spent years training his charisma with flirting, but there was much more to it than that and he was clever enough to take full advantage.

\---

Sylvain’s plan had results even he didn’t expect once he reached Enbarr. Unlike Faerghus, where nobles lived in their own territories and visited the capital only when necessary, the Adrestian capital was full of nobles. Nobles with politics, alliances and rivalries so complicated they kept elaborate journals and notes of the current standings. Sylvain found the town house belonging to House Hevring and made a bashful and contrite introduction. Yes, Lord Minister, I take after my father, true. Oh no, I certainly could not present myself to Lord Arundel himself. You cannot simply run away with a fortune and expect to come home to open arms, but our Houses are traditional allies, are they not?

Lord Hevring was suspicious, but Sylvain knew the look in his eye: he was a man watching the shadows over his shoulder. He would be suspicious of his own brother showing up on his doorstep. Boarding young nobles from other Houses was common in Enbarr and Sylvain was decidedly noble. He also had a loaded hand. It was well-known that he disapproved of his own son and wouldn’t Syl-Giuseppe be a good influence on him? Sylvain knew what the man wanted to hear; they were the same things his own father wanted, so he painted the picture in his blood spilt by his father’s signet ring.

Linhardt von Hevring was a wispy, willowy boy with a remarkable ability to tune out anything he didn’t want to hear. He was nonplussed at the introduction of his new companion and even less impressed by the obvious insults hurled at his apparent friend, the ‘Bergliez whelp.’

It took a month for Linhardt to figure out Sylvain’s identity. 

Less than a month, as he’d clearly known longer and simply not bothered to say anything. He sighed as Sylvain’s hand clenched around the book’s spine. “Don’t do anything stupid,” Linhardt said. It was strange to hear the words be tired instead of… threatening. “Just keep telling my father what he wants to hear and letting me nap and we'll be fine.”

\---

For a year, his luck held firm. Linhardt put an ounce of effort into fooling his father. Not out of any love for Sylvain, but to avoid the possibility that his father found a tutor that would try to educate him in decorum with his fist. No, it wasn’t Linhardt that dropped the floor out from beneath Sylvain’s feet.

After a year in Enbarr, Minister Hevring decided that it was high time Linhardt attended a proper Imperial social function. With, of course, his manners tutor to ensure that Linhardt didn’t embarrass their House. Hevring must have suspected Sylvain’s lies because he very pointedly did not introduce “Giuseppe” to Lord Volkhard von Arundel, but keen malevolence danced in the man’s eyes and he asked after Sylvain’s identity on his own.

Sylvain wasn’t afraid of Arundel. He didn’t think anything would scare him more than being found by his father. He bowed to the perfect depth, in the Imperial fashion, not in the way he learned in the Kingdom. “Giuseppe von Enns, Lord Cousin,” he said with syrupy deference.

Arundel tilted his head and smiled just a hair too wide, the same uncanny width Miklan’s expression had before leaving him out on the mountainside. He nodded his head. “Welcome to Enbarr, Cousin. You cannot imagine how pleased I am to see your mother’s line again. Please, you must move into my house. Though I don’t doubt House Hevring’s hospitality, I have so very much missed having my own blood around.”

\---

Sylvain lived in Arundel’s townhouse for seventeen days before it happened. When he’d arrived, followed by Hevring servants with his things, Lord Arundel had placed a gold bangle on his wrist with the family’s sigil. “We can’t have you getting lost again, can we?”

Sitting in Arundel’s shadow, Sylvain considered running again, but he was as stupid as his father always said because he wasn’t afraid. On the eighteenth day, Arundel dropped a magic tome onto the table before him. He stood, tall and imposing in a way Margrave Gautier only wished he could. “You will study this cover to cover until you can cast anything within as you sleep. You will breathe this magic like air, yes?”

He twisted his face in the obedient, but calm, noble, but not arrogant expression that had won over Lord Hevring. “I will do my best, though I’m afraid it will take time. I don’t have any particular skill with magic.”

It was at that moment, with a smirk on his face, that Sylvain understood the reality of his situation. Arundel’s face melted away like a tallow candle under a fire spell. Beneath it was a taller man with black eyes and white hair. “I took care of the von Enns myself. You, boy, possess a Crest and with it, you will do exactly as I say. Never forget that I do not need you for my plans to succeed. Your life is my gift to you. It is your responsibility to keep it.” 

He pushed the tome into Sylvain’s hands and his mask of flesh returned. “I expect you to keep up with your weapon’s training. While the bracelet will hide the presence of your Crest, I expect you to be able to use it on command in two years’ time.”

\---

Six months of gruelling training, during four of which Not-Arundel was thankfully absent, later Sylvain realized the bangle hid more than his Crest. He leaned two inches away from the mirror and pulled on the delicate skin under his eye. The color was different: flecked with yellow and green and with a new, dark ring around the iris. How had he not noticed earlier? He pulled back and turned his head to the side to examine his profile. Something was off, just the smallest bit not right… He choked on a breath and bit his fist as realization struck. 

Sylvain, a runaway turned servant of an inhuman murderer, dug his teeth into his flesh and cried in relief. When he looked in the mirror, the face was undeniably his, the changes happening so slowly that he hadn’t noticed at the time, but what he didn’t see, what there was not even a shadow of…

Was the face of his father.

For the first time since he dismounted in the wildness of Itha, Sylvain felt free.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a migraine, so i am posting this so people will tell me nice things and it's quarantine so i'm just gonna be honest about it and feel no shame, lmao

Two years to the day after he ran away, Sylvain was introduced to his ‘cousin,’ the Imperial Princess. She had snow-white hair and doll-like features belied by the hard angle of her eyebrows and suspicious quirk of her mouth. Behind her shoulder, at a textbook respectful distance, loomed an awkward crow of a boy Sylvain’s age. He glared openly, glanced at Arundel, looked back at Sylvain and then straightened his spine.

“I’ll dispense with the niceties,” Arundel said. His hand clenched Sylvain’s shoulder hard enough to hurt despite six months of willful, if not happy, compliance. “This is Giuseppe von Enns. He is my, and therefore your, cousin. Like Hubert, he will be assisting your efforts at the Officers’ Academy.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Princess,” Sylvain said. The charm was a comfortable, old blanket over a new face. His eyes sparkled as they met her exacting stare.

“I wasn’t aware the von Enns had any heirs,” Edelgard said. She let him kiss her gloved hand, but didn’t soften her gaze. Though it did flick to the bangle on Sylvain’s wrist.

“As I told you before, the Aegir boy cannot be trusted. Giuseppe will be an invaluable asset in securing the loyalty of your classmates. His help will limit the bloodshed when the time comes. Consider him my gift to you.”

Sylvain beamed at her. Destroy the Crest system? Knock down system that supported his father? Tear down the Goddess that left him to rot in a well for a full day and night? Arundel didn’t need his threats or his face-melting.

Edelgard continued to study Sylvain with tense suspicion.

Arundel released Sylvain’s shoulder and opened his arms in a magnanimous gesture. “You complained of the death count involved in cleansing this world and I offer you a solution. Will you truly refuse it?”

“Very well, Uncle. Thank you.”

\---

“You have no idea what he is,” Edelgard said, smiling over her glass of wine. Around them, a great ball spun, twirled and charoused, celebrating the new year. If the Imperial Princess were to retreat to a quiet corner, if she looked to be having a private conversation, half of the court would bend their ear to listen. A simple chat in the middle of a celebration with her cousin? Of no interest.

“All of the court is two-faced,” Sylvain said. “Some more literally than others.”

She quirked a single eyebrow. “Like you?”

Sylvain took a sip of wine and turned one hand palm up. “One and a half, really. Both handsome and neither stolen.”

“Whatever my uncle has offered you, it isn’t worth it.”

He almost ignored the comment. Almost let it be drowned in cheerful music and wine and faux snow. Almost, but Sylvain was clever. Ingrid wasn’t the only one who read fantastic tales of grand adventures and heroes and villains. So Sylvain raised his glass in a mock toast. He smiled Arundel’s too-wide smile. “For some revenge, any sword will do.”

Edelgard lifted her glass and nodded.

\---

When he met Ferdinand von Aegir, Sylvain’s first and strongest reaction was a disbelieving look at Hubert, who just nodded like the awkward scarecrow he was. After suffering through an afternoon of Ferdinand ‘competing’ with Edelgard, Sylvain decided that his only value was in masking the strangeness of Sylvain’s coloring. While the bangle had shifted the vibrant red of his hair to a more common orange, he’d held a little bubble of nerves deep down under his confidence. 

“Here I thought I was just that good, but no, my competition was…” Sylvain gestured to Ferdinand’s… To Ferdinand. “That.”

The very edge of Hubert’s mouth pulled up. Not quite a smirk, but the best Sylvain had gotten so far. He fiddled with the hem on his glove and did his best not to look pleased. “I expect you to treat our classmates in the Black Eagles with all of the respect they are due.”

Ferdinand laughed too loudly and too boisterously over his tea.

“That amount can always be none.”

An eyebrow lift and knowing side-eye. Sylvain was on a roll.

\---

After spending the better part of four years in the Empire. Sylvain expected to feel nothing when he ‘met’ the Blue Lions for the ‘first time.’ He kept up his act perfectly, though, because Hubert wasn’t smugly self-satisfied after. Not that Hubert was his main concern. There was something distinctly  _ wrong _ with each of his old friends. 

Dimitri had always been a mild and polite boy, but House Leader Dimitri had every bump sanded down until he sparkled like new armor. He was so sincere, he slid past honest all of the way back to fake. Ingrid burned with a determined drive for perfection that screamed at an audience of no one. Sylvain would know, he’d been the same way for a few years before he realized it didn’t help.

Felix was… a different person. If Sylvain had introduced himself with his real name, he would have been closer to his old self than Felix was. As a boy, Felix had been sharp emotions that shouted in every direction for attention. Felix at the Officers’ Academy was as cold and silent as a knife in the dark.

Memories bubbled up in Sylvain’s mind, but he shoved them into the empty cavity in his chest that should have held a heart. It had withered away long ago, starved and frozen out, so Sylvain filled the space with old memories and a childhood promise he wouldn’t let himself remember. 

\---

“Galatea and Pinelli will be easiest,” Sylvain said. He leaned back in his chair, legs on the table and a tactics guide open on his lap. “Same approach, different words.”

“Yes, Giu, you’re very clever, but if we could skip the self-aggrandizing.” Edelgard wrote quick and neatly across the page, in the middle of her third letter of the night. “I need the abstract, not the full paper.”

Sylvain dropped the two legs of his chair to the floor with a thunk. “Alright. They’re shackled by obligations and just need a little reassurance that it’s okay to shrug them off.”

“Good. What else? Focus on the Kingdom. The Alliance-”

“Will do its best to maintain neutrality, I got it.” Sylvain scratched his tongue across his teeth. Edelgard was right, of course, but he’d wanted to couch his knowledge of Faerghus in rambling about students ‘Sylvain’ had never met. “Ubert’s the heir to Gaspard territory. Forget that he’s adopted; that’s a bad line. Gaspard is notoriously sycophantic… to the Western Church. I’ll do some digging; there’s more there.”

Hubert spoke without looking up from his own missive. “The original Gaspard heir was turned over to the Church in connection with the Tragedy of Duscur. I am certain you will not need to dig deep.”

“Dominic should be heiress, but succession went noa-shaped when her father joined the Knights of Seiros and renounced his titles. But… She loves him, so we’re going to have to go through von Martritz, who’s a tougher nut to crack.”

“True believers always are,” Edelgard murmured over her letter. She leaned back to reread it from a distance, checking for errors. “What about Fraldarius? They’re the backbone of the Kingdom.”

Memories churned, hot and acidic in Sylvain’s stomach. Fraldarius  _ and Gautier _ were the backbone of the Kingdom. Were, but not anymore. Not with his father stuck with Miklan and a second, Crestless son who Sylvain did his level best to know nothing about. Sreng had gained ground over the past four years and the regent was doing nothing to support the margravate. Sylvain allowed himself to feel, for a moment, and then cocked his head to the side, as if he’d been presented a particularly tricky training scenario. 

“He hates the prince, hates his father, brother dead, his only friend is obsessed with his dead brother… If we can offer him anything, he’ll come to us.”

“Then find out what he wants.”


	3. Chapter 3

The truth was, Sylvain wasn’t entirely convinced he wanted to recruit Felix to the Black Eagles. Most of the students were heirs or the predominant power of their family, like Ingrid, but Felix had a perfectly serviceable uncle to inherit. Sylvain was out of the loop of Faerghus politics, but he didn’t need to be Hubert to know Felix had no interest outside of training his swordwork and less than no interest in running Fraldarius when the time came.

Once upon a time, Felix had waxed exalted about his future as the Sword to Glenn’s Shield of Faerghus. They’d play-acted the stories in Ingrid’s knight novels, with Sylvain, the oldest and the largest, as the villain. He laughed at the ceiling of his room. He was the villain, wasn’t he? He planned to stand with Edelgard and tear down the Kingdom and everything it held dear. Crests, primogeniture inheritance, patriarchy wasn’t explicitly on Edelgard’s list as far as Sylvain knew, but he supposed it was implied.

He didn’t want to make Felix a villain, but the alternative was facing him across the battlefield. He swallowed the sickness in his throat. He was a monster: empty, cruel and heartless. He was selfish. He’d help Edelgard recruit Felix.

\---

“Spar with me,” Felix said the moment Sylvain entered the training grounds. His dark hair was tied back in a messy bun and while there was a slight flush to his cheeks, he didn’t seem to be sweating. His grip on the training sword was loose, but ready.

“Fraldarius, right? From the Blue Lions?” Sylvain tugged on the open seam of his uniform jacket. It ended at his waist with red braids hanging from the shoulders to denote his relation to his House Leader. Hubert had narrowed his eyes on the verge of commenting on the slackness until Sylvain mentioned not wanting to be confused for Ferdinand.

“You know who I am,” Felix snarled with such contempt Sylvain had to touch the bangle on his wrist to reassure himself the glamour hadn’t faded. “Pick up a weapon.”

In the face of Felix’s spite, Sylvain’s resolve from the night before dimmed. Dimmed, but failed to wink out, just as his smile failed to fade. He lifted a second practice sword from the rack. He was better with a lance, Edelgard was counting on him to lead the cavalry when the war came, but to convince Felix, he’d have to use a sword.

Felix didn’t hesitate or test Sylvain. He lunged forward with a full thrust and perfectly angled blade. Sylvain met the strike and reached inside himself. Not-Arundel’s hand-blistering training regimen made him good with a sword, but he would have to cheat to impress Felix. He yanked on the Crest in his blood and felt his wrist itch as the bangle soaked up the visual evidence of the activation.

The Crest of Fraldarius flared in response and Sylvain choked on the surge of emotion it pulled from the chasm in his chest. Sparring with Felix would be the sweetest torture.

\---

Before Sylvain could report on the spar with Felix to Edelgard, she returned from a training exercise with a mixture of consternation and delight in her eyes. He exchanged a glance and raised eyebrow with Hubert. The plan had been to get one of the professors killed so that Jeritza would lead the Black Eagles for the term, but despite the Knights of Seiros rushing off early in the night, this wasn’t the reaction they’d been expecting.

“Are you well, Lady Edelgard?” Hubert reached out, hesitated and then gently touched his hand to her shoulder.

“I’m fine. Thank you, Hubert.” She pushed her hair over her shoulder, but the movement was slow and stuttering, hinting at an injury.

Sylvain and Hubert escorted her back to her room and then slipped in. Hubert, as the first in, activated the silence barrier that would prevent eavesdroppers. He also poured Edelgard a glass of water, which he pressed to her unresisting hands after she sat on her bed. She tugged on her blanket with pinched fingers, curling it around her, as if for comfort.

“You’re both hovering like governesses.”

Sylvain put his hands behind his neck and leaned against the door. “Can you blame us? Those bandits weren’t the most reliable bunch to begin with.”

“And your only assistance was from Blaiddyd and Riegan, so effectively none.” Hubert took the empty glass from her hands and passed her a fresh pair of white gloves from one of his pockets. 

With a relieved sigh, Edelgard slipped her dirty and torn gloves off and covered the scars beneath. Sylvain hadn’t been told what caused the scars, but Edelgard let far more slip than Hubert was happy with, so he had something of a picture. 

_ You have no idea what he is. _

Sylvain shrugged the thoughts away and dropped his hands. “Well, our dear Princess is nothing if not resourceful. That was a nice, tight mercenary core that came back with the Knights.”

Edelgard didn’t respond. Hubert shifted his weight and leaned towards her, as if he were desperate to give her a hug, though as far as Sylvain knew, he never had. Eventually, Edelgard pulled the blanket up and around her shoulders.

“Something happened.” Her voice was as frail as a frozen rose. Her hands clenched into the soft, plush fabric. “The captain was Jeralt the Blade Breaker, but his  _ daughter… _ there is something wrong about her.”

Purple-black magic danced from Hubert’s hands to Sylvain’s. A question too painful to ask. 

“She felt like the Crest of Flames.”

\---

At times, Sylvain questioned the inherent need to utterly destroy Rhea. This was not one of those times. On meeting an unknown, unnaturally powerful  _ sword-for-hire _ she then put said mercenary in charge of some of Fodlan’s most important children. Not that Jeritza was the most transparent and trustworthy fellow, but he at least had tenure. The Blade Breaker himself would be a better candidate, but no. The Black Eagles would be instructed by the Ashen Demon, Byleth Eisner.

Sylvain’s eyes hurt from how many times he and Hubert exchanged sidelong glances. They loved Edelgard, both of them. Sylvain had made himself the older brother Miklan never was and Hubert was devoted out of a weird lack of self-worth, but it was love all the same. And neither of them could understand her fascination with the professor. The moment of irritation that Jeritza wasn’t their professor passed before it was even fully formed and now they were dealing with something Hubert called admiration and Sylvain called a crush.

It was… nice, to see Edelgard acting her age for once. That Felix was obsessed with dueling the professor helped.

\---

Sylvain choked on his own tongue when he learned about their mission in Faerghus. Not that he was afraid of being recognized, no, Giuseppe’s face was as soft and warm as Margrave Gautier’s wasn’t. No, but because the Archbishop couldn’t have made turning Ubert to their side easier. The aftermath was even better… worse… better. No, it was worse.

Rhea killed the boy’s adoptive father, slaughtered peasants armed with little more than pitchforks and sharpened hoes and then showed no mercy to the survivors. 

“Hubert… You know that you are invaluable to me, but…” Edelgard trailed off, her eyes on Ubert’s shaking shoulders.

“I understand, my Lady. I trust von Enns will protect you should the boy foolishly place the blame on your shoulders.”

“Thank you. I know Ashe will come to trust you, in time, but you are… Rather a lot to take in, especially in a moment of weakness.”

Hubert merely bowed.

Sylvain lowered his voice and fought against leaning down to Edelgard’s height. “Do we have somewhere we can put his siblings where they’ll be safe from Rhea and…”

Edelgard glanced up at him, soft gratitude beaming so brightly from her face that it made the hole in Sylvain’s chest clench. “Yes. Randolph von Bergliez is one of ours and keeps a separate residence from his half-brother.”

“Thank you.”

“No, thank _you_ , Giu.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It gets worse before it gets better.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all i', pogged out of my mind. i love this au, let me know what you think

It was a week after the Goddess’s Rite of Rebirth that Sylvain got Edelgard alone. Hubert was tethered to Ferdinand on stable duty meaning that even if Sylvain’s conversation went long, he’d have plenty of time. He activated the silencing spell when Edelgard let him into her room and her eyebrows lifted up underneath her bangs. 

“I was expecting you earlier, but I should have known you would wait for Hubert to be absent.” She sat on her bed and let him take the chair at her desk. It was covered with homework, masking the delicate, political letter-writing she spent most of her time on.

“I want to know what’s wrong with the Church. Holding up the Crest system and the corruption in the nobility is one thing, but Rhea’s obsession with the professor and then the latter’s ability to wield the Sword of the Creator without a Crest Stone…” His hands fluttered and he considered telling her about the Lance of Ruin, about how he knew how it felt when the Crest Stone pulled on your soul and converted it into power. Considered it, especially when she removed her gloves and rubbed a thick cream into the scars on her hands, but didn’t.

“Rhea… Isn’t human. She, the saints and many high-ranking members of the Church are cruel beasts. Have you heard the legends of the Immaculate One? A great, white beast that comes to defend the faithful? That is Rhea’s true form.”

Sylvain hunched over in the chair and steepled his fingers. In Faerghus he’d grown up with legends of the Church of Seiros and the War of Heroes as much as he’d heard the stories of Loog and Kyphon. Rhea, he knew, had ruled as the Archbishop for far longer than any human should have been able to live, but there was more, comments he’d heard around the monastery… “Shamir and Alois both said that Jeralt the Blade Breaker has lived an unnaturally long time, too. Is he one of them?”

If Edelgard were anyone else, she would have flinched at the question, as it was, she only widened her eyes. “You think Jeralt..? The professor’s father..?” Her eyebrows drew in tight as she considered it. “I think… There’s more.” She sat at her full height and with every ounce of regal bearing she had. “The humans that sided with Seiros and allowed the Church to rule over humanity were given gifts. Crests. My ancestor, William von Hresvelg, was given the Crest of Seiros for betraying humanity.

“In the histories, he has a death date, but the truth is we do not know when he died. When he left the Empire to his son, he disappeared, looking not a day older than he was when he joined Rhea and her family in battle against Nemesis and the Ten Elites.” She wilted slightly. “It is because of his actions that I must walk this path.”

Sylvain’s breath was hot and wet against his hands. His blood rang like Saint’s Day bells in his ears and he could so-clearly see the Crest of Gautier before his eyes. “You think the Blade Breaker was given a Crest like your ancestor. Given it directly, explaining his long life, but if Crests are gifts from these creatures, how did Nemesis and the Ten Elites come to have them?”

Edelgard’s expression faltered.

Sylvain leaned back as the realization crashed into him like a wave. “Whatever Arundel is, they were able to implant Crests then, too. So they stole the Crests and Seiros-Rhea-the creatures used that as justification to take over?”

“You really aren’t one of them?” Edelgard whispered the question, as if even asking it could make it untrue.

Sylvain opened and closed his hands several times. He looked at the window, at his lap, at Edelgard’s hands, back in the cover of her white gloves. “I… ran away from home. A noble home.” He grinned without any mirth. “I thought I was so smart. I picked an identity I didn’t think anyone would be able to disprove.”

“And it just happened to put you in my uncle's hands. I’m sorry, Giu.”

“No.” Sylvain shook his head. Then he spat out half of a laugh. “He thinks I’m afraid of dying. That I’m his miserable little slave doing what he says because I have no choice.” He grinned like a starved wolf in the dead of a Gautier winter. “This is the best my life has ever been.”

“It’s for that I’m truly sorry.”

\---

Sylvain was still trying to decide how to convince Edelgard - El! - that while she had chosen the path of war, there shouldn’t be any guilt on her shoulders, when Duke Fraldarius arrived at the monastery. He half-expected to be recognized again, but Rodrigue’s presence was almost worse.

The bangle burned on his wrist and Sylvain could barely eat the entire month leading up to the Black Eagles’ mission. Though he was certain El had figured out his identity, she didn’t tell Hubert. Sylvain knew because he was there when Hubert figured it out. His face turning a sickly purple as realization dawned. Like many of Hubert’s headaches, it was Caspar’s fault.

“Hey Giu, are you sick? You barely touched your spicy dango! That’s your favorite.” Caspar spoke at a half-shout while also reaching out to take said, untouched dango.

Linhardt lifted his head from where it was propped up on his head. “He’s not sick.”

“He’s not eating! He’s gotta be sick.”

“It’s just family troubles.”

Caspar’s jaw snapped shut with an audible click. A moment passed, Linhardt’s spoon crudely scraped the bottom of his soup bowl and then Hubert set down his fork, removed the napkin from his lap and excused himself from dinner. 

Petra tilted her head to the side. Before she even opened her mouth, Sylvian knew his response needed to be perfect to ensure no one else put the pieces together. “I was thinking Lady Edelgard was Giuseppe’s--” It was truly kind how much effort she put into pronouncing ‘his’ name correctly. “--only family?”

Sylvain put a grimace on his face: inconvenienced, slightly uncomfortable, but not overly worried. “I just got some news from the border. You know how it is.”

Petra nodded knowingly and the conversation moved elsewhere.

\---

Neither Edelgard nor Hubert spoke to Sylvain about Miklan, for which he was eternally grateful. What he wasn’t grateful for, was Felix’s inclusion on the mission. He’d thought he would be happy or at least less worried when Felix was no longer on the other side of the line, but the reality was worse. 

Felix at seventeen didn’t walk. He prowled. He stalked. He put all of his frustration and anger and training into every movement, shifting from place to place like a solid wall despite his stature. He claimed it was just a one month excursion with the Black Eagles, but no one believed it. 

Then again, aside from Sylvain, no one suspected Felix might hate Miklan in particular. He’d thought he’d hid his injuries well enough, thought he’d lied convincingly enough, but despite the drastic changes in personality, he could still understand Felix well enough to see the grudge. It was in the set of his mouth, the tightness around his eyes. He also hated his father, which Sylvain was desperate to understand, to soothe, but he was too busy untying the knots in his stomach. The constant, searching glances he kept sending Sylvain didn’t help.

The day they travelled to Conand Tower, Sylvain pulled his hair back with a heavy, silver clip in the shape of a striking eagle Edelgard had given him as a ‘I won’t ask when your birthday is’ gift. The bangle didn’t feel like enough. He was terrified he would look at Miklan and see his own face staring back at him. That all of the friends he’d made would meet his brother and finally see the darkness where his heart should have been. He stayed at the back of the party with Linhardt to guard against reinforcements, even if it left him near Knight Dominic or whatever he was calling himself these days.

He felt the Lance of Ruin before he got a look at Miklan’s face. The tether that bound him to the weapon felt angry at being wielded by someone unworthy. No… It felt hungry. Sylvain felt sick.

Felix charged at Miklan, interrupting his speech about spoiled children. His sword sparkled with blood as lightning cracked outside of the tower. Miklan blocked and Sylvain gagged because he  _ knew _ that particular block, held his lance at the same angle and held it with the same grip and he felt fainter than Linhardt covered in blood.

“Fraldarius! Of course.” Miklan laughed, sickly delighted. “You want revenge for your little boyfriend don’t you? I knew it would be you.”

Until that moment, Sylvain had forgotten about that particular taunt. Had forgotten just how much his brother terrified him. His hand tightened around the shaft of his lance and he had to fight the urge to throw it to the ground. 

When his brother transformed into a horrible beast, when the Crest in his blood sang in exaltation at having a fresh body, Sylvain fell to his knees and held his head so tightly he cut his face open with his gauntlets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> since hits are broken, please comment to let me know if you liked it!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops

Sylvain couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t lay down. Couldn’t stop all of the terrible thoughts looping from the chasm in his chest, up to his mind and then back down in a sick, weeping loop. The storm had lightened to only rain, so he left his tent and walked in it until he was soaked to his socks. His boots would take days to fix, but he couldn’t do anything else. Past the edge of the watch line, he could just make out the hunched shape of another person.

He sat next to Felix just barely in arm’s reach. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to be comforted or offer comfort, though he was pretty sure he didn’t deserve either. Would it even help Felix to know Sylvain was still alive?

“Your princess wants to end it, doesn’t she?” Felix asked the storm. His voice was raw and chapped from tears lost to the rain.

Sylvain swallowed his own sob. “End what?” He didn’t have the energy, the anything to make the question sound convincingly uncertain.

“Crests.” The word was a curse. It was a pejorative harsher than “boar” aimed at Dimitri.

“Yeah. Yeah, she does. All the nobility. Make people live for themselves, not for the descendents of men their parents served.” Black ichor, pain and fear and regret dripped onto the mud with the rain, spilling out of Sylvian’s chest.

“Ironic, coming from a princess.”

“If anyone else could do it, she’d let them. Hell, she’d  _ make _ them.”

“Alright.”

And that was it. With a single word, Felix pledged himself to a war he didn’t know was coming. Sylvain didn’t feel any better.

\---

Hubert snatched Sylvain’s arm as he walked down the hall and dragged him into Edelgard’s room. The silencing spell washed over the room and Hubert leaned in so close to Sylvain’s face that he could see his second eye under his bangs. “What did you do with the Lance?”

Sylvain opened his mouth, closed it and then peered around Hubert to see Edelgard staring at him with the same intense question in her eyes. He pushed Hubert back with one finger. “I… Was going to ask you the same thing. When Gustav woke the camp-”

“Gustav?” Edelgard asked.

“Gilbert,” Hubert muttered.

“-yelling about how it’d been stolen, I assumed you’d warped it away.” He let out a deep breath, some tension leaving him. “Can’t say I’m not relieved you weren’t saving it for me, but I don’t know where it went.”

Hubert didn’t back down. Magical energy swirled around him invisibly, making the air thick enough to choke on. “This is no playground scuffle we plan to engage in. If you think you can get away with giving anything less than your utmost to the war effort-”

“Hubert, please. Once we find the Lance of Ruin we can work something out with Giu. I’m sure my uncle always intended for him to have it.” She gently pulled him back by his shoulder and gave Sylvain space to breathe. 

Sylvain nodded his agreement, reluctant as it was. “He didn’t say it explicitly, but I know the way the wind’s blowing. I didn’t know how he was going to get it from Gautier and frankly I wasn’t about to ask.” He took a breath to calm himself. “Is there any chance he or one of his people took it? Or Linhardt?”

“What would Linhardt want with it?” Edelgard asked. “His Crest isn’t compatible.”

“Don’t know, but I heard him pestering Catherine about Thunderbrand.” Sylvain rubbed the back of his neck and ignored Hubert’s glare.

“While I agree he would want it,” Hubert said through clenched teeth. “I doubt he has the motivation to steal it when he can safely assume we intend to acquire it for the war efforts.”

“He knows about the war?” Sylvain hissed back. If Arundel found out anyone outside the three of them knew, heads would roll. 

“We think he has some measure of surveillance spells in his father’s office,” Edelgard answered before the two could fight. 

Sylvain cast his thoughts back to his year in the Hevring townhouse and nodded. “His primary method of avoiding his father’s scolding was to preempt everything.” He ran a hand over his hair. “Right. I’ll write Arundel. I seriously doubt Gustav would hide it, claim it was stolen and send it back to Faerghus on the sly, but if you’ve never met him, it’s believable.”

Edelgard nodded. “Better than admitting we don’t know where it is.”

\---

When the professor told Edelgard about Flayn’s disappearance, she, Sylvain and Hubert very purposefully did not exchange looks. However, in order to avoid another Case of the Missing Relic Weapon, Sylvain holed up with the other two in Edelgard’s room the next morning.

“Arundel plans to let her be found alive.”

“That man and his absurd plans,” Hubert said. He sighed and rubbed his forehead with two fingers. “Did he deign to tell you why he’d let the creature live?”

“He said he’s suspicious of us. While that’s true,” he exchanged a sardonic eyebrow lift with Edelgard, “I doubt that’s his real reason. He has old Tomas if he wants to spy on us, but he’s going to plant a girl going by Monica von Ochs with Flayn.”

“Former Black Eagle. Went missing approximately one year ago,” Hubert added.

“Yeah. He wants me to field any suspicion over her personality change. The story, not that we’ll tell anyone, is that it was a runaway attempt gone bad. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was threatening me.”

Edelgard snorted, then let out a full laugh.

Sylvain smiled. “Thanks El.” He ignored Hubert’s glare at his use of the nickname. “Anyway, I’m all in for witnessing a terrible training accident, but I don’t know if the disguise disappears on death. ‘Monica’ turning into someone else might garner more suspicion than we want.”

“I agree. Now isn’t the time to get clever. The war cannot be stopped at this point, but it can leave our control. Best that we let him play his games and brace ourselves for the results.”

“Well said, Lady Edelgard.”

\---

Arundel’s game, it turned out, was the corruption of Remire village. Sylvain was thankful he didn’t have to hide his horror and disgust because he wasn’t sure he could. Even Hubert had an unusual tightness to his jaw and sharpness to his magic. In silent agreement, they turned all efforts to comforting Edelgard and attempting to convince her there was nothing she could have done to prevent it. 

Sylvain sweet-talked Mercedes and Lysithea into baking her a cake. If there was one thing he knew about building relationships, it was that people liked you more if they did favors for you. Why, he didn’t know, but the results spoke for themselves. And Edelgard loved sweets, never indulged and frankly deserved it. 

While she was busy trying to find a way to dignify shoving cake into her mouth, Sylvain pulled Hubert into his room. He cast a half-assed silencing spell and rubbed his face with both hands.

“Losing your composure so easily von Enns?”

“Yeah, yeah, enjoy it. Look, we need to do damage control with Linhardt immediately or he’ll run his mouth off in front of Edelgard.”

“While I admire your dedication, I assure you that Lady Edelgard did, in fact, witness the worst of it herself. Perhaps now you will assist me in convincing her off the front lines.” Hubert looked as smug as he could with powdered sugar on his uniform jacket.

“No, she didn’t, because we took survivors. Survivors that are going to die horribly over the next two  _ weeks. _ This may have been an experiment for Solon, but Arundel tried it on the servants in the townhouse at least twice since I moved in. I know you caught at least the edge of Dimitri’s breakdown. My money is on it being an attempt to unhinge him completely.”

“Such induced madness would explain why the people of Duscur attacked the King of Faerghus with such senseless brutality. He was fully decapitated and there was not enough left of the Fraldarius heir to send home.” Hubert stared at Sylvain, waiting for a reaction that never came. He smiled, just the slightest bit kindly. “I will deal with Linhardt. Keep working on von Martritz and von Ordelia.”


	6. Chapter 6

After the tragedy at Remire Village, the avalanche started down the mountain. More than questions about Monica’s personality, Sylvain fielded love letters and gifts addressed to… himself. The flood of empty affection was both strange and a waste of his time, even if he was able to regift a majority of them to Edelgard once Hubert checked them thoroughly for poisons. Then came the ball and people wishing to a goddess that didn’t exist and while Manuela was still suffering from her hangover, students were turned into demonic beasts in the old chapel on the monastery grounds.

After seeing Miklan transform, Sylvain was certain nothing would numb him to the horror, but apparently repetition could. Then the Blade Breaker, who might have been hundreds of years old, was murdered by Monica because of course it was her. Then Sylvain and Hubert had the curious task of trying to discern what, exactly, the magical disturbance Edelgard had felt during the murder was when Edelgard herself was caught between war preparations and comforting the professor.

War preparations. As the first real battle loomed, Sylvain wanted to feel anxious or guilty or anything other than resolved. And free. He’d thought he felt free when he looked into the mirror and saw a stranger, but this war was it. True freedom just out of reach, just beyond the horizon, just touched by the coming dawn, as if the professor had opened the curtains in his cell when she returned from certain death with light hair and eyes. He wanted it so badly he could taste it and as Archbishop Rhea prepared some ceremony that no one outside of the Black Eagles thought was creepy, Felix took note.

He appeared in Sylvain’s room and threw the Fraldarius relic, the Aegis Shield, on his bed. He scoffed at it and turned, as if he couldn’t bear the sight of it. Sylvain almost couldn’t either. It was supposed to be Glenn’s. He looked up from his desk as Felix loitered before it, silent and full of tension.

“Hello Felix. Good to see you, too. Why yes, it is a lovely evening we’re having, isn’t it?”

Felix scoffed and looked away from his face. “It’s soon.”

It wasn’t a question, so Sylvain didn’t answer it like one. “Are you ready?”

“Are you?”

\---

As they waited in the Imperial outpost for the rest of the army to arrive, Felix was Sylvain’s shadow. He rarely spoke and then mostly demands for training matches. He sat on a crate that once held provisions and ran a whetstone down the length of his favored sword. When he finally started a conversation on his own, Sylvain nearly dropped his book.

“Fuck why the tombs had Crest Stones in them. Why did the princess order her people to take the bones?”

Sylvain closed his book without saving his place and turned full to face Felix. While he still went through the motions over his sword, Sylvain knew weapons well-enough to know it was purposeless. “The bones?”

“And the musty old bones,” Felix said without inflection, but Sylvain heard the quote in it.

“They weren’t human,” Sylvain started, thinking aloud. “Maybe they have some kind of inherent power that makes them good spell components.”

Felix nodded and went back to actual maintenance before freezing a moment later. He dropped the stone and held up the sword as if he’d never seen it before. After the bizarre examination, he looked up into Sylvain’s eyes as if he could see his childhood friend under the illusion. Then he picked up the Aegis shield from where it laid at his back. He turned it over a few times before his hands switched to a deathly white grip. He stood in a single motion and stalked across the outpost until he reached Edelgard. He shoved the shield at her.

“Did you know?”

Edelgard looked from the shield to his face and back again. She pressed on the shield until Felix dropped it. Her voice was low, as to not carry. “The Sword of the Creator could not more obviously be a spine. Yes, I knew.”

“Swear it,” Felix demanded. 

Hubert moved to shove Felix away, but Edelgard stopped him with a raised hand. She waited for Felix to continue, unwilling to prompt him the way Sylvain would.

Between clenched teeth, Felix finally bit out. “Swear that when this war is over, we destroy these abominations and they are no more. Forever.”

“You, Felix Hugo Fraldarius, have my word as the Emperor of Adrestia. No more Relic Weapons. Ever.”

\---

Ferdinand cornered Sylvain the stables when he was hiding from Felix. His near-constant presence made the rotten remnants of Sylvain’s soul throb and ache. Maybe the war would have bridged whatever the chasm was between him and his father? Maybe he would have reconciled with Dimitri? Neither of those seemed likely, but surely the chance of them was better than being around some stranger from the Empire with ulterior motives.

So basically, he spent a lot of time in the stables, giving Ferdinand ample opportunity to speak his mind.

“It is crass of me to say, but I simply do not believe you to be Edelgard’s esteemed cousin.”

Sylvain raised his eyebrows and tugged on his short ponytail. “What gave you that idea?”

“While I cannot deny your noble bearing, being a noble does not make you a relative of the Emperor.” Ferdinand smoothed his already wrinkleless jacket. “For one, your accent is not quite right.”

Bewildered amusement took over Sylvain’s face. He would have to keep meticulous track of everything Ferdinand said so that he could tell Hubert later. “I did grow up on the border.”

Ferdinand lifted his chin and looked down his straight nose. “So you say, and yet you were perfectly magnanimous toward that boy, Cyril.”

“Are you accusing me of… not holding prejudice against our neighboring countries?”

“Well-” A blush covered Ferdinand’s face. “That’s not quite what I intended. Surely you were friends with Hilda. You were quite the social butterfly at the academy, after all. And her views-”

Sylvain laughed. “Given my place in this war, do you really think I make myself beholden to what other people think I should believe?”

Ferdinand jabbed an accusatory finger into the space between them. “You are twisting everything I say in a most rude fashion.”

“Is this because I caught you praying to the goddess? You know Edelgard doesn’t care what you believe, right? It’s not about the goddess, it’s about having the freedom to choose what to believe. To not be killed for believing “wrong.”” Sylvain shook his head.

“It is not,” Ferdinand said stiffly. “I am well aware of Edelgard’s beliefs. I have committed her manifesto to memory.”

“So that’s what this is. You’re jealous.”

“I most certainly am not!”

“And why wouldn’t you be?” Sylvain continued. “With your father ousted and your lands redistributed, you have nothing. You were quite the golden boy, weren’t you? A single, perfect heir compared to the eleven Imperial children, most of whom were illegitimate, Edelgard among them. But then there was only one and she was perfect. No matter what you tried, not matter what field, you could never measure up, could you?”

“But you didn’t resent her, no, that’d be terribly ungentlemanly, so you decided you were content with being her Prime Minister. With moderating her actions and guiding the greater political sphere. Then here I am, just a little bit better at magic, just a little bit better on horseback, just a little bit better at making allies.” Sylvain was actually much better at making allies since he didn’t have Ferdinand’s naivete, but he could be polite while tearing him down. “I even have your coloring, but  _ better. _ You really do have nothing, don’t you? I’d think the only reason you were here was to undermine us.”

Ferdinand stalked across the stall and grabbed the front of Sylvain’s jacket. “The only resentment I have is that I could not be the one to unseat my father and his selfish, destructive greed. I am not the simpleton you and Hubert believe me to be. An empire does not go from eleven heirs to one without ten deaths. Do you think I envy the emperor’s suffering? That I want the scars she so diligently hides? My desire is to be a hand that holds her and the empire up and my ire towards you is for convincing them I am not worth the chance. An emperor can only have two hands, can they not?”

“No, she can’t.” Sylvain smirked and then pried Ferdinand’s hands off him. “But thankfully for you, once this is all over, I’ll be overseeing what was once the Kingdom and finally making peace between Fodlan and Sreng.”

“You…”

“Just want to be free. Then I’ll be out of everyone’s hair and you can play minister all you like.”

\---

If Ferdinand figured out Sylvian’s identity, he said nothing about it. That he even might know, however, picked at Sylvain like a vulture at a carcass. He should have told Felix the truth. He should have suspended the lies for the one person that mattered most to him. He should have, but didn’t. Sylvain was a detestable shell of a person that abandoned his best friend at his brother’s funeral, but Giuseppe was a warm, caring person who watched over his little cousin and stood strong as her general.

Felix might have wished for Sylvain to come back, once, but now he had better people to waste his energy on.

Sylvain rode behind Edelgard and her battalion, a bulwark against potential flanks. Felix walked beside his horse, dressed in Fraldarius blue even as he stood under the Empire’s red banner. When the vanguard went ahead to demand unconditional surrender, Felix looked up at Sylvain until their eyes met, at which he stared back at the monastery walls. “It’s time.”

Sylvain let out a hard breath. “Yeah. It is.”

“I made a promise once. A long time ago.”

Sylvain’s heart reappeared just to burst in his chest. He tightened his grip on his lance so he wouldn’t grab his chest. “Y-yeah?”

“We promised to live together until we died together.”

Apologies spilled like tears from Sylvain’s eyes, but he couldn’t give them voice. Not moments before battle. “But now that you’ve sided with us…”

“Yeah,” Felix said. He turned and stared into Sylvian’s eyes as the battle horn sounded. “But fuck promises and fuck him. I’m not dying here. You’d better not, either.”

“I won’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUN DUN DUN, please let me know what you think!


	7. Chapter 7

The war started without the professor. While Hubert and Sylvain privately agreed that the professor was likely some kind of hybrid between the Church creatures and humans, accounting for her awkwardness with human emotion and ability to wield the Sword of the Creator, they kept such theories away from Edelgard. Her hopes were already up with the stars that her beloved professor would one day return to save the day and they would rather focus on the actual war.

Despite attacking the monastery with them, Ingrid left for Galatea once her pegasus recovered. No one interrogated her or tried to stop her, even when it was obviously she was returning to the Kingdom. She lingered on the ground just outside the army camp until Sylvain rode up on his wingless horse to see her off. He held out his hand until she took it. “Stay safe. Emperor’s orders.”

“Giuseppe.” And wasn’t it strange to hear his fake name in her voice, even after the better part of a year. “I… believe in this war. I know this has to be done, but I can’t-” She covered her eyes with her hand. “The people of Galatea were on the edge of starvation before the war. Prince Dimitri as I knew him is gone and even the old one never gave us aid. If I return, a string of wealthy merchants and mercenaries will shower us with gifts in hopes of securing a noble title in the chaos and-”

“You don’t have to explain yourself. Dorothea and Leonie are cooking up some scheme to help orphans and other civilians caught in the fighting. I’ll see if they can get your people some provisions.”

Ingrid’s half smile made it clear she thought she was at the bottom of the priority list, but Sylvain would do what he could to help. He wanted to feel guilty for leaving Gautier to his father and baby brother, but based on all of the historical accounts he could find, most of Gautier territory had been stolen from Sreng a year after a bad crop up north, so maybe it deserved to fall. Without the Lance of Ruin, his father didn’t stand a chance against the Srengi warriors.

At last, Ingrid dropped his hand and turned North-East to Faerghus. “Take care of Felix for me. He’s all I have left.” She cantered away without hearing his whispered “I will.”

\---

Once he was in the loop, Ferdinand proved surprisingly useful. After the appearance of the Immaculate One and disappearance of the professor, the Imperial forces were nervous about any further direct assaults. Ferdinand’s solution to keep the war machine moving was to have them focus on road building and other infrastructure. It raised morale in the villages and towns too small to care about the greater politics in their land and established easier supply lines for when the fighting was more involved. Lorenz travelled to Derdriu to convince Claude to do the same.

A civil war in the Alliance wasn’t actually to the Empire’s benefit. Even if Edelgard didn’t care for the death toll, it was simply a bad economic decision to take over a country destroyed by internal war, even if it made the military victory easier. The fact was, with Lysithea, Marianne and Lorenz, Edelgard had more than half of the Round Table. Claude’s reticence, or whatever it was, that kept him from revealing his ties to Almyra meant that Goneril would be unwilling to turn away from the East until the last possible moment. He really only had Riegan and Daphnel forces.

“Why do you think he kept it secret?” Sylvain asked Felix one night on patrol.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Claude,” Sylvain said. He stopped and looked at Felix under the moonlight. The dim light softened the sharp angles of his face and it made warmth claw at the gaping hole in his chest. “He couldn’t have more obviously been Almyran nobility if he tried.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Felix said. He started back on their route without waiting for Sylvain. “Since you hadn’t noticed,” he added when Sylvain caught up. “Most people in Fodlan think being born on the other side of an invisible line makes a person stupid. Raised on the border, my ass.”

If it had been anyone other than Felix, Sylvain would have been offended. For one, he  _ had _ been raised on the border. Just a different one than he let people believe. And for two, Margrave Gautier was either prejudiced or so arrogant it made no difference. Sylvain just had a fraction of Ferdinand’s blind optimism that maybe their classmates wouldn’t have cared. “Being doubly-noble and a legitimate heir might have made a difference.”

Felix snorted. “You were too busy with your face in the war plans. He got it as bad as Dedue even with the facade.”

“Okay, okay, you win.”

\---

A year into the war that was looking more like a giant three-way stalemate with Edelgard and Claude refusing to fight without overwhelming odds and Rhea stripping the Kingdom for resources and soldiers in a way she could only pretend the Empire would if won, Sylvain tracked Lysithea down in the great Imperial Library in Enbarr. She had her own office on the third level, a birthday gift from Edelgard. He slipped in and cast the silencing spell he could, and had, cast in his sleep.

“Giuseppe. Whatever you want, I’m busy. Though I will take the sweets.” She held out her hand without looking up.

With a laugh, Sylvain dropped the cloth napkin with cookies that Mercedes sent with him. “I don’t need anything, I actually came here… for you.”

She narrowed her eyes at him even as she bit into the first cookie. “I’m listening.”

Pulse thrumming in his veins, Sylvain removed his magic tome from his satchel. It was battered from the intense study regime Arundel forced on him and then a year out in the field, but all of the pages were there. Though he had needed to sew a few back in. “This was given to me by one of the leaders of… those people.”

Her mouth curled into a deep frown as she took it. “I have a lot of research to do, you know. I don’t have time to waste on- Oh.  _ Those _ people.” She snapped the tome shut with a crack. Her eyes blazed with fire. “Why, exactly, did they give it to you?”

“I’m not one of them, if that’s what-”

“Does Edelgard know?”

Sylvain sighed and slumped into the squishy chair usually occupied by a napping Linhardt. He held out his wrist, showing her the gold bangle. “Look, I made some bad decisions and ended up more or less in their thrall. But then I got really lucky and assigned to just do whatever Edelgard wanted so she wouldn’t turn on them. And yes, she knows, but she’s resigned to her shortened lifespan. I won’t make you swear to keep quiet, but if Hubert thinks there’s a chance, he’ll devote what little time he sleeps to finding a cure.”

Lysithea flipped through the pages. “You think there’s something relevant in here?”

Sylvain pulled his mouth in a thin line and fought back sudden nausea. “It has detailed notes on the implantation process. I think he wanted me to beg for it.”

Though her frown softened, Lysithea’s eyebrows drew closer together. “Does it even work if you don’t already have a Crest?”

Sylvain comically shrugged and looked away.

“Oh. Well… You know where to find me if you want to talk about it.”

“Thanks, Lys.”

\---

Dorothea and Leonie’s plan to rescue orphans was a few steps past genius. On being told that, Dorothea threw her hair over her shoulder and grinned. “Of course it is. You noble types can’t see past the end of your manicured nails.”

Leonie, Ignatz, Raphael and what remained of Jeralt’s mercenaries travelled around Fodlan as a nomadic acting troupe. In every town they claimed to need extra little handles to sew costumes and build sets. Sets that conveniently hid the food and clothing they distributed to places ravaged by war rationing and weather. It allowed Ignatz to practice his favored skills with painting sets and other backgrounds and even made a little money for Raphael to funnel back to his little sister. Meanwhile, Dorothea kept the children fed and clothed in the townhouses than once held corrupted nobles.

Conveniently, the orphanages also served as proofs of concept for Ferdinand’s ideas for educating the general population. At the end of the day, the entire operation was the first thing to make Sylvain honestly believe that all of Edelgard’s dreams would come true once the war was over. It was a weird feeling, having something to look forward to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I love this AU so much. It works out so well for everyone. 
> 
> Also the return of Sylvain&Lysithea found siblings.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is living their best life... except Dimitri...

Three years into the war, or the Stalemate, as Sylvain called it in his head to keep up morale, Hubert warped into his office in a swish of his dramatic black cape. A scroll slipped out of his sleeve to land on top of Sylvain’s reports. “Giuseppe.”

“Hubert.”

“My people retrieved this coded missive from a shipment of supplies as it came in from Albinea. The cypher is not one I am familiar with. I thought it only polite to ask you before decoding it myself.” Despite asking for help, Hubert still looked smugly superior. He must have been having a good week.

Sylvain rubbed his eyes and then unrolled the scroll. From the first glance, he knew Hubert’s problem. “This isn’t a cypher.”

At that, Hubert sat in Sylvain’s spare chair. “It is most definitely not Albinean, if that is what you’re implying.”

Sylvain squinted at the small script and read the letter through several times. At fifteen, he’d been conversationally fluent in Srengi, but this was both formal and many years since he’d stopped practicing. “This is from Sreng. And you were supposed to find it. You’ll want to find a better translator, but the gist is that while they won’t agree to a formal alliance with the Empire, they… Killed Margrave Gautier and have occupied a majority of the territory.”

Hubert’s shoulders relaxed an amount so small no one other than Sylvain would have noticed. Or, he supposed, Hubert himself. “That is better than I was expecting. It would have been a pity to lose my coffee supplier.” He grinned at Sylvain’s scoff. “And the information matches what my spies brought back three days ago. Rowe and Fraldarius are the only remaining competent generals in the Kingdom.”

Sylvain set the letter down so that he wouldn’t crumple it in his hands. “Were you ever going to tell me my father was dead? Or were you going to wait for me to stumble upon the knowledge myself at the worst possible opportunity?”

“If you must know, I received the notice from Galatea. I wrongly assumed she wrote you as well.”

“Ingrid doesn’t know who I am.”

“I need not be the one to tell you that the stakes grow only higher the longer you keep it secret. While she remains allied with Her Majesty in spirit, that may change on learning of your betrayal.”

Sylvain clenched his jaw. The look in his eyes clearly said, ‘And not to mention Fraldarius.’ His long-lost childhood friends were none of Hubert’s business. “Without the Lance, I never have to be anyone other than Giuseppe von Enns.”

\---

“Lord Enns?”

Sylvain stared at Ignatz until he pushed up his glasses, stuttered and tried again.

“Giuseppe?”

“Yes, Ignatz?”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but have you ever considered glasses?”

Sylvain blinked at him. “What?”

“I was talking to a few people from your battalion and, um, well, your aim with magic is terrible, especially compared to your skill. Then I noticed that you’re always squinting. At first I thought it was ridiculous because surely the Emperor’s cousin could afford glasses, but, and not to say you’re oblivious, but what if you simply never considered that you might have difficulty seeing?”

\---

As simple of a change as it was, being able to see properly made Sylvain feel almost as free as the day he realized he no longer looked like his father and never would again. He ran around the city looking at wall paintings and reading signs and then spent several days in the training fields outside the city practicing his spell placement. The difference was striking and he found himself all-but giggling after a particularly precise spell.

“What the fuck is wrong with your face?” Felix asked. He rarely ventured out of the sword hall, so that warmth came back, slithering around where his heart used to be.

Sylvain planted both hands on Felix’s shoulders and beamed at him. “Did you know that you can see individual leaves on trees? This is spectacular!”

Felix threw his hands off. “Do you really mean to say that all of these years you’ve been  _ literally _ short-sighted?”

Sylvain framed his face with his hands. “How do I look? Dorothea helped me pick the frames. It was so strange at first. And I’m not sure I’ll wear them on horseback because I don’t want them to fall off, but-”

“You’re an idiot.”

“An idiot that can see!”

Though Felix rolled his eyes again, the edge of his mouth curled up in a smile. “Fine, show me how much better you can see with a spar.”

Sylvain must have really impressed Felix with his magic because after repeatedly pounding him into the sand at the sword hall, Felix agreed to go with him to dinner.

“You know, Felix, I’ve been meaning to ask…”

Felix looked up from his stew and narrowed his eyes. “Whatever it is, the answer is no.”

“Aw, come on, I haven’t even told you what it is yet! First off, it’s not about me.” He stirred his own stew around. It was a difficult question to ask and Felix wasn’t the best candidate even if he did agree, but he was the one Sylvain trusted most. And if he agreed, he’d work harder at it than Linhardt.

“Fine, I’ll listen and then tell you the same thing.”

“I know you won’t tell anyone, but I have to say I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t.”

“Out with it--!” Felix cut himself off with something between a choke and a scoff and snapped his gaze to his bowl. “I won’t say anything.”

“Alright, alright.” Sylvain took a deep breath. “I’m sure you’ve noticed Lysithea is… Delicate. Basically, her magic is kind of screwed up and pulls energy from her life rather than just not casting when she’s tired. And other issues, but that’s the easiest one to explain.” He looked at his hands and saw the scars that were on Lysithea and Edelgard’s. “You think differently than everyone else. I know how frustrated the professor was when she was trying to teach you magic because you just see it differently. I really think you could help her in a way no one else could.”

Felix glanced up for a second and it was a punch to the gut because Sylvain was thrown back to their childhood, when Felix would run to him crying about every little thing. He didn’t know what to say, but he was breathless anyway, so it didn’t matter.

Then Felix looked back to his food and the moment was broken. “Yeah, whatever, I’ll talk to her.”

\---

Four years into the war, Annette was half-carried into the war room in Enbarr, still ash-streaked and in torn clothes. She half-stuttered, half-sobbed a thank you to the soldiers that brought her in and took the glass of water from Sylvain with shaking hands. She didn’t protest as she was gently pressed into a chair.

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” she murmured, looking at the cup in her hands once she caught her breath.

Edelgard signalled a close to the meeting and mouthed to Hubert to get Mercedes. She pulled out the chair closest to Annette and sat close, leaning in and touching her knee. “It’s perfectly fine, Annette. Are you quite alright? The last we heard you were serving safely in your ancestral home.”

“I-it was my uncle. And Father. They can’t deny the Archbishop anything. For generations all of our soldiers have automatically gone directly in service to the king, so when she demanded a tithe of fighters, we didn’t have any to give. They just started pulling strong men and women from their homes and ordering them into training. I’m sorry. I just brought you people to house and feed, but the Knights of Seiros were ordered to kill any deserters and Catherine knows the area around Dominic and there was nowhere else to take them.”

Edelgard met Sylvain’s eyes, both of them full of fire and ash. They let the rage and hate pass between them and then shuttered it behind calm expressions. Annette was in no state to hear them on the warpath.

Sylvain stepped up to Annette and made sure she saw him before lightly touching her shoulder. “If nothing else I can take a few into my household. Lord Arundel left me in charge while he deals with matters outside of the city.”

“Thanks, Giu…”

“Try to relax, Annette. We’ll find places for everyone. Many of the palace staff requested leave as their relatives joined the army. We’ll have Dorothea meet with everyone and see if we can smuggle their families across the border. I can’t see Dimitri ordering them punished, but-”

“But he’s changed,” Annette finished miserably. “Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My favorite part of this AU is explaining how/why people came back during/post time skip from other countries. What's yours?


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YO, this fic is COMPLETE. Please bear with me as it's posted.

When the professor returned from the dead or a hole in the ground or wherever she’d been, time sped up, as if the sun itself was tired of the war. Sylvain still stood at Edelgard’s right hand, though Ferdinand had taken up position just beside Hubert at her left. Ever since his father died, he’d taken to wearing a red-brown formal vest over a teal blouse; a combination that earned him a long, angry stare from Felix.

And a completely baffled one from Ingrid, who was staring at him instead of the Emperor she was supposed to be reporting to. She looked over her shoulder at her brothers, but they unsubtly jerked their heads to Edelgard, unbothered by whatever she saw in Sylvain.

“Your Majesty,” Ingrid finally said. “I cannot thank you enough for your support these long years.” She bowed again, probably having forgotten that she already did so twice, and presented Edelgard with Luin, the Relic of Daphnel. “The war has taken a toll on our father, who has retired to the country. I can offer you only my lance and the hands that wield it.”

Edelgard took the Lance and formally handed it back. She spoke several ceremonial phrases and then pulled Ingrid into a hug. “I’m glad you’re well, Ingrid. After how Annette found us, I was worried.”

“Annette’s here?” Ingrid relaxed so suddenly, one of her brothers grabbed her arm before she could fall. She swallowed a lump in her throat. “There were riots in Dominic for months and then she was announced missing and presumed dead.”

Hubert scowled openly. “How generous of her father not to admit she was a deserter.”

Ingrid turned to Sylvain, though she blinked and shook her head before speaking. “Is Felix alright? I assumed I would have heard something, but…” She bit her bottom lip.

“He should be in the training grounds with the professor now.” Sylvain rubbed the back of his neck. Maybe wearing Gautier colors was a little too on the nose, even with his changed face and the Imperial cut of his clothes. He adjusted his glasses. Or he was thinking about it too hard. “Leonie’s in the kitchens if you want to see her. I know you became friends during her visits.”

\---

Though it was Lorenz that got them into Leicester territory and arranged for the meeting with Duke Riegan, he wasn’t welcome at the table himself. He very graciously didn’t complain about it, likely because he and Ferdinand planned to complain about their mutual exclusion over tea. Edelgard brought only Hubert and Sylvain to the meeting where Claude had Holst and Judith. After perfunctory introductions everyone took a seat.

“You know why I’m here, Claude.”

Claude leaned back in his chair. “I do appreciate you not knocking on the gate with the whole army.”

“With Ingrid openly declaring her allegiance, I have five of the ten Heroes’ Relics as well as a Relic weapon that responds to the Crest of the Beast.” Edelgard folded her hands on the table. She didn’t mention the Sword of the Creator, she didn’t need to with the way it loomed over all of Fodlan since the professor’s return. “Then, I have the heirs to three of your five Roundtable seats. Neither of us want the Alliance ravaged by war, civil or otherwise.”

“You can’t expect us to just bend the knee,” Holst said. His resemblance to Hilda was striking even though she was so stereotypically feminine and he was built like Raphael. “Almyra’s decreased raids are a sign they’re preparing for a major invasion. They’re just waiting to see how the marbles fall and then the Throat won’t be enough.”

Edelgard stared at him, glanced at Claude, whose expression gamely hadn’t changed, and then burst out laughing. She laughed and laughed before finally accepting Hubert’s handkerchief and wiping her eyes.

“With all due respect,” Judith said, her tone clearly implying none, “Almyra is not to be underestimated.”

Edelgard smiled and straightened her spine, looking down her nose at Judith, as if she were a governess. “I agree with you. However, I doubt Prince Khalid and Queen Tiana will allow a full invasion of their homeland, no matter how little they care for it.”

While she restrained a verbal reaction, Judith made a terrifying face and grabbed Claude’s arm in a death grip. It was clear they’d be having a nice, long conversation later about pertinent secrets in the middle of war. Sylvain had sympathy for him, but at the same time, had told everyone about his own identity. Well, everyone in charge. He supposed it would have been different if he’d been in charge. Edelgard hadn’t told him anything of her own past, he’d had to piece it together from vague comments and his own research.

Claude grimaced and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “Alright, alright. No need to draw the Lance of Ruin, I get it. You came prepared.”

Sylvain and Hubert exchanged a look, but neither spoke over Edelgard.

“What makes you think we have the Lance of Ruin? It went missing five years ago.”

Claude nodded his head at Sylvain. “You’re not the only one who can put pieces together.”

“Be that as it may,” Edelgard said, “we’re not in possession of the Lance of Ruin. Its location is as much a mystery to us as it to you. And with our goals, it will never be needed again. Spare your people and ours the war.”

Claude laced his fingers together. “Almyran succession isn’t that straightforward. Surrendering the Alliance isn’t going to help my case against my fully Almyran siblings. This show of weakness could well convince them to invade. My mother can only beat up the generals for so many years.”

“She would, “Judith muttered.

“We’re in the position of writing our own narrative. Are you surrendering or ousting the heretical Church and moving on to an actual challenge?” Edelgard gestured to Holst. “You’re friends with the greatest threat to Almyra in generations. Take him East and harass your other enemies.”

“You can’t just volunteer- Holst, no, why do you look excited about this?” Claude looked despairingly at him.

Holst nudged him with his elbow. “If it’s good enough for Tiana von-fucking-Riegan, it’s good enough for me, too.”

Judith sighed and rubbed her temples. “I suppose I lost my say in this when I gave Edmund my seat. Fine, but you’re not getting it for free. We’re saving you war costs. I expect to get them back. In full.”

Hubert grinned and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “Conveniently, I have already done the maths.”

\---

With the Alliance’s surrender in favor of a peaceful integration, the next stage of the war was Arianrhod. Sylvain didn’t know anything more about the fortress than Hubert or Ferdinand. Three of them studied the original construction plans long into the night for two straight weeks, before deciding nothing else could be done until Ashe returned from scouting. His late father still had allies in the Kingdom, allies furious that their resources were going to the Church that destroyed Lonato’s bloodline.

Hubert held Sylvain back after Ferdinand left his office. Sylvain lifted an eyebrow, but Hubert said nothing until the sound of footsteps faded. “I must sojourn to Aegir territory. Ludwig has been poisoned. Ferdinand has requested that I attempt to find the antidote.”

“I see.” Sylvain didn’t know why he was being told this. He already knew the late duke was dying -- and he more than deserved it.

“If you so much as think of entering my office while I am gone, there will be severe consequences.”

Sylvain nodded and walked back to his quarters. He didn’t like the sound of that. It was a clear invitation, nigh command, for him to snoop through Hubert’s papers while he was gone. But why? His own father was dead, his little brother adopted by a Srengi commander. Did Miklan have a bastard Hubert thought he cared about?

He gave it twelve hours after Hubert’s departure before he cracked the intentionally-left-weak defenses. It took him an hour of searching before he found it. The report was written in a sharp, urgent hand. The defenses of Arianrhod would not be led by Rowe, no. Dimitri must have realized the war would be lost when the Silver Maiden fell because Rodrigue had just arrived with his personal soldiers.

“What do you want?” Felix snarled when Sylvain interrupted his training session.

With his expression as blank as he could make it, Sylvain walked out of the sword hall and waited for Felix to follow him. He didn’t speak until they were past the first scout line surrounding the former monastery. His breath shuddered in his chest. “Duke Fraldarius will be guiding the defense of the Silver Maiden.”

“So?” Felix crossed his arms over his chest. “My loyalty isn’t in question.”

Sylvain wanted to laugh tears at the implicit accusation. Felix was right, he was a dirty traitor, but they all were, to someone. “If you need to… Leave. Or just… Not be there. I’ll cover for you.”

For long minutes, Felix stood in silence, presumably stewing over how offended he was. But when he spoke, his voice was soft and his gaze was aimed at the ground. “Why are you offering me this?”

Sylvain opened his mouth, but his canned response was shoved out by his heart, unwilling to be ignored now that it had unshriveled enough to speak. “Sometimes… When we make the best decision we can, it still hurts the people we love.”

“Fine.”

And then Felix walked away from the monastery and into the mountains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUN DUN DUN
> 
> Predictions? 👀👀👀👀
> 
> Hits are still broken, so show your love by predicting the future!


	10. Chapter 10

Sylvain didn’t sleep after Felix left. Which was fine, there was no shortage of work to be done. He knew Hubert and Ferdinand each worked more than a single person’s amount, but to have it all suddenly dumped on him was still a shock. It was a miracle any of them slept when all three were working at capacity. He didn’t regret his decision. The least of what he owed Felix was the chance to make things right with his father.

But, goddess, he missed him. If the work hadn’t been drowning him, it would have been the tears from his suddenly and traitorously revived heart. Oh, he’d always loved Felix, he couldn’t not love his once-best friend, but he hadn’t realized that at some point he’d gone from loving Felix to  _ loving _ Felix. Of course he didn’t notice until they were on opposite sides of the war again. When any day could be the last they shared life, but he deserved that after faking his own death. After abandoning Felix during the worst part of his life.

The night before the generals were to leave Garreg Mach for Faerghus, they holed up in the old cardinal’s room for a last-minute council. Petra did a majority of the talking. Her people, effectively absent in the past five years as she and her grandfather rebuilt Brigid in its independence, would be leading the assault. Faerghus was set in its ways and slow to change; they would be unprepared for the foreign warriors.

Ingrid sat next to Ashe, their faces pale as snow. They’d told everything they knew of the Grey Maiden, everything they knew about the defenders. Sylvain had watched Ingrid pick out the pieces of her heart that still loved Glenn and lay them out on the table as how to defeat his father. Kill his father because Rodrigue would not allow himself to be taken alive. She, like everyone but Hubert, believed Felix to be scouting out Castle Fraldarius while Rodrigue was out.

Sylvain didn’t deserve for Felix to not be at Arianrhod, but he still prayed for it as the hour passed midnight. Rain was pounding against the walls and it felt so perfectly appropriate that Sylvain just let himself languish in the sound and his guilt. But that was something else he didn’t deserve.

A knock sounded at the door and it opened. Flanked on either side by black and red armored elite guard stood Felix. His hair was down and he was soaked through and as angry as a wet cat.

Sylvain choked on his heart. Felix couldn’t have been captured. It simply wasn’t possible. No one had been looking for him. Hubert had backed up Sylvain’s lies. It couldn’t be.

It wasn’t.

Felix was unbound. He shook his wet hair, spraying everyone near the door with droplets and then strode in, a covered polearm in hand. He stared into Edelgard’s eyes, nodded and then stalked to Sylvain. He ripped the cloth off the weapon and wordlessly presented Sylvain the Lance of Ruin.

Sylvain’s blood roared in his ears. So did Ingrid.

“I knew it! You  _ asshole! _ We thought you were dead! For years!”

While Ingrid continued her completely justified rant, Sylvain turned to Edelgard. Instead of irritation, her face was marked with relief. She looked like a wilted flower under her crown. She whispered to the professor, probably explaining Sylvain’s identity. Hubert smirked at him. No wonder he had supported Sylvain’s lies. Felix hadn’t deserted after all. And Sylvain was the only one to not know. The thought made him spit out hysterical laughter that cut off Ingrid’s yelling.

Felix shoved the Lance into Sylvain’s hands and stalked out of the room to warm up and change. Sylvain cried through his laughing and awkwardly cradled the horrible weapon as he wiped at his face. 

\---

Sylvain couldn’t face Felix for the first two days of travel. He rode in his place behind Edelgard and the professor stewing in his guilt and trying to think of what he could possibly say to Felix. Ingrid had forgiven him after a solid punch to his gut and a bribe of a steak when they returned from Arianrhod. She understood why he ran. After his presumed death, much of his childhood made the rounds across Faerghus as the servants in Castle Gautier that loved him made the truth known.

Part of him was ashamed that people knew, that everyone knew, but a bigger part was relieved that he wouldn’t have to tell anyone. In hindsight, the truth being out probably helped Edelgard trust him, all those years ago. His skin felt raw and itchy, and not just from crying.

The second night, Edelgard pulled him into the tent she shared with the professor. Byleth had the Sword of the Creator on her lap, glowing softly as Edelgard pushed him down onto a cushion.

“We meant to have this conversation before we left Garreg Mach, but Felix has a taste for the dramatic,” Edelgard said.

Sylvain conjured as much of a smile as he could. “What is it?”

“Cornelia, one of my uncle’s people, is also at Arianrhod.”

Sylvain nodded. Cornelia had been mentioned repeatedly in the briefings and he’d long known she was a plant, though Edelgard and Hubert had left that out of the general orders.

“We believe that once she’s dead, Arundel will use that as an excuse to… show the power he has over us.”

“Sounds about right.” Sylvain grimaced and adjusted his glasses. “Are you thinking it’ll be like Remire, or..?”

Edelgard shook her head. “No, we think… Hubert especially, that he will kill you.”

“Oh. Well. That’s a bit of a downer.”

“Giu, take this seriously.”

He took a breath. “Right, okay, obviously you have a plan.”

“We think that bracelet he gave you is more than just a mask for your Crest. It makes perfect sense if he could use it to hurt you from a distance.”

“Oh, he can,” Sylvain said. He felt like he shouldn’t have sounded so casual about it, but the occasional jolts of crippling pain had still been better than his father’s punishments. “But I can’t take it off. Broke my thumb twice trying. It shrinks.”

Before he could react, the professor lunged forward and sliced through the enchanted gold with the Sword of the Creator.

“Well, there’s always that.” He wiped his face, finding it wet again. And he’d thought he’d run out of tears. His hand froze over his cheek. The bracelet  _ had _ been more than just a mask for his Crest. It had been a mask for his  _ face, _ too. For his father’s horrible gaze staring back at him in every reflective surface. And it was gone. He was going to be sick. He croaked out a thank you and fled.

\---

Felix found him that night, because of course he did. Sylvain had hidden himself in a copse of trees just inside the scouting perimeter to grieve the loss of his freedom. At least he’d stopped crying by the time Felix scoffed and sat opposite him, leaning back against a different tree.

“Get over yourself, Sylvain. Everyone knew.”

A laugh tore itself from Sylvain’s raw throat. “I know I fucked up and I owe you an explanation, but not now.”

“I’ve been waiting five fucking years, yes now.” Felix crossed his arms and glared. “I even gave you two extra days.”

“You don’t understand.” He ran his hands through his hair, the eagle clasp safely in his pocket as he pulled and tore at the red strands. “Edelgard removed the bracelet that hid who I am.”

“Everyone already knew, you fucking idiot,” Felix repeated. He leaned forward and ripped Sylvain’s hands away from his face. “And that ridiculous lance isn’t exactly a subtle weapon.”

Sylvain met his eyes, trying to ignore the wet smudged on his lenses. “Do you see what I mean now?”

“Being a crybaby with glasses doesn’t change who you are,” Felix snarled almost warmly. He took hold of Sylvain’s forearm. “Do you have any idea what it was like for me? You just showed up at Garreg Mach like nothing happened with some bullshit name and story. I thought I was going as crazy as the boar, seeing ghosts everywhere. Giuseppe this, Empire that, but I knew you were you.” He sighed and gently squeezed Sylvain’s arm.

“I don’t even know who I am anymore,” Sylvain said miserably.

“Then you’re an idiot. You never changed.”

“Felix, look at me! I look like them now!”

“What the fuck are you talking about? You look the same.”

“No, I don’t. The bracelet had a glamour on it. Made me look like someone else.”

“No, it didn’t.” Felix said the words slowly, with long pauses between each one. “I recognized you immediately.”

“But it did! My face changed!”

“It’s called puberty.”

Sylvain sputtered at the comment and the utter seriousness of Felix’s expression and the echo of the deadpan words cracked through his despair. “I know my appearance changed.”

“People see what they want to see. You wanted to look different, so you stopped seeing who you were before. The boar didn’t recognize you because he didn’t want to see another ghost. Maybe the hair fooled Ingrid, but I always knew it was you. We made a promise.”

Sylvain pushed himself into Felix’s arms and cried, a strange reversal of when they’d been kids and made the stupid promise, but it was perfect. Felix was perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the funniest thing I've ever written.
> 
> do you agree?


	11. Chapter 11

It was far from the first time Felix shared Sylvain’s tent, but it was the first time Sylvain felt comfortable with it. The truth was finally out, even if Felix had suspected the entire time. His stomach flipped at the thought. He trusted Felix, but he didn’t have a hand mirror or any way to see for himself that nothing had changed. He’d barely recognized Ingrid with her short hair and hadn’t recognized her brothers at all.

“Stop it,” Felix growled, voice half lost to a yawn.

Sylvain rolled onto his side and looked into Felix’s face. Most of the tense, annoyed wrinkles were missing so early in the morning. His hair was loose and tangled, some sticking to his cheek. To push back the urge to touch him, Sylvain asked, “Stop what?”

“You’re thinking something stupid.”

“No, I’m not.”

Felix cracked his eyes open to see for himself. He made an annoyed sound deep in his chest and slipped both hands out of his bedroll to hold onto Sylvain’s face. Felix’s hands were cool, but his touch burned Sylvain’s cheeks.

“Morning, Fe,” Sylvain said instead of crying. Or screaming. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but his chest was so full of a heart he’d never had before that it felt about to burst.

Felix muttered, “Idiot,” and then pulled and  _ pulled _ until they were breathing the same air and then Sylvain couldn’t breathe at all because Felix was kissing him. It put a stop to all of Sylvain’s stupid thoughts because it put a stop to thought altogether.

He’d thought about kissing Felix on and off since he was twelve, but once it was happening, he had no idea what to do. He scrambled to pull his hands out, to hold Felix in return, but all he ended up doing was hitting him in the chest. He gasped and crooned out a pathetic “No…” as Felix pulled away.

“Goddess, you’re hopeless.” Despite his words, Felix stroked his cheek before pulling away and getting up. He pulled his armor on with practiced movements, as familiar with it as his own skin. “Don’t let it distract you or it won’t happen again.”

Words shot out of his chest and cascaded down from his brain until all Sylvain could actually say was a star-struck, “Okay.”

Felix buckled on his second sword belt and reached down until Sylvain took his hand. “Are you admitting where your stupid face came from or are we still supposed to call you Giuseppe?” He curled their fingers together. Even if the question was hard and edging on derisive, the meaning was clear. Who did Sylvain want to be?

“I’m… me.”

Felix rolled his eyes. “You’ve always been you, Sylvain.” He squeezed Sylvain’s fingers and then dropped his hand. He took one more lingering look at Sylvain before leaving.

Just as the tent flap closed, Sylvain managed to force out a stilted, “I love you.” He didn’t have time to wish Felix had heard him or that he hadn’t spoken because Felix stuck his hand back in the tent in a rude gesture before disappearing.

\---

The battle at Arianrhod was worse than the one at Garreg Mach even without the Immaculate One. The warriors from Brigid had experience breaking through and into Imperial-built fortresses despite losing their war with Adrestia. Lord Lonato’s old friends, Ashe’s friends, let in Hubert’s mages and Caspar’s axe wielders. Edelgard rode in the vanguard on a great white stallion between Sylvain and Ferdinand. 

Three too-familiar banners made Sylvain sick to his stomach. Fraldarius, of course, had pride of place, followed by Rowe, who ostensibly owned the fortress, but behind that was Gautier and Galatea. Apparently, Rodrigue had pillaged what was left of their territories after his father’s death and Ingrid’s desertion with her brothers and the bulk of her people. He doubted he would recognize anyone, but it still felt like his father’s corpse was being thrown around for the Church’s benefit. 

He raised the Lance of Ruin and swept it through the air, forcing his Crest to activate. The Faerghus troops roared and Edelgard signalled the charge. The battle was ugly and short. With the defenses hamstrung, the soldiers fell easily before the Relic weapons. Ferdinand speared Count Rowe on the Spear of Assal, the holy weapon of Cichol taken directly from Seteth’s hands before he fled with Flayn five years earlier when the war began.

Hubert appeared in the window of the tower behind Cornelia and Edelgard turned her massive horse, eager to remove one of her ‘uncle’s’ generals. She signalled to Sylvain. “Giu, find the Shield and break him. We can handle Cornelia.”

Sylvain nodded and pushed his gelding through the broken courtyard. He found Rodrigue’s banner before he found the man himself. The sick, black dark magic he’d learned at Arundel’s hands alerted him to the fight as he approached. A fierce itch crossed his skin every time a Crest activated and the Crest of Fraldarius didn’t need Sylvain’s control to work with every strike. 

“You’re a coward, a deserter and a traitor!” Shouted the man who’d been kinder to Sylvain than his own father, not that that took much. His face was flecked with blood and his blue eyes were wild with fury. Though he’d surely begun the fight mounted, he clashed swords with Felix, with his  _ son, _ on the ground. He carried the Sword of Moralta and struck against the Aegis Shield, lit more by Crests than the sun.

“Kneel, old man. You don’t have to die for the boar’s madness.”

Sylvain’s heart caught in his throat. He hadn’t expected Felix to give his father the chance to surrender. He held a cruel spell in his hand, ready to intervene before Rodrigue could truly wound Felix, but unwilling to interrupt.

“My only madness was to think you could ever replace Glenn.”

Felix didn’t even grace his father with a death by sword. He shot Thoron into Rodrigue’s heart and then dispassionately took the sword of Fraldarius from his limp hand. “You never once saw me, did you?”

\---

That night, Sylvain slept with his head on Felix’s chest, as if he was the one in need of comfort. Felix held him and stroked his hair and told him stories about Glenn. Their room in the fortress once belonged to the guard captain. Sylvain had been offered one of the guest suites, but refused, unable to stomach being surrounded by familiar blue and gold heraldry. Hell, he might have even stayed in one of those rooms as a child. No, it was far better to squeeze onto the lumpy mattress with Felix, far from the main residences. 

A comfortable silence stretched between them and Felix’s heartbeat was slow under Sylvain’s ear. He sank into the warmth and realized it wasn’t just a dream. He really could spend the rest of his life this way, if he didn’t fuck it up.

“We’re getting a cat.”

And if he could follow when Felix only said half of what he was thinking. “When this is over?”

Felix returned with something between a growl and a hum.

“You know, there are these big, fluffy cats in Northern Gautier. Huge, fierce things. And traditional wedding gifts. To guard the house while the newly weds are-” He laughed when Felix pinched his ear and settled in to properly sleep.

\---

Two nights later, Sylvain was ripped from the tent he and Felix shared by two pairs of gloved hands. He heard Felix yell and the shing of metal as he drew his sword, but the warp spell pulled him through nothingness in an instant. He materialized with his captors with the private courtyard that once belonged to Rhea. He was thrown on his knees with his hands held behind his back and a wicked dagger at his throat.

“Do not even think of warping,” Edelgard said. Her eyes blazed with the reflection of the lamps that lit the space. Hubert and the professor stood behind each of her shoulders, doom written on their faces.

Sylvain didn’t struggle, but he bared his teeth. “What’s this about, El?”

“Did you know?” Edelgard took a step forward, Amyr glowing in her hand.

“That Felix is going to attack whomever the fuck he can find? What were you thinking?” Sylvain jerked his hands, not a real attempt to free himself, just to prove a point.

Hubert stepped up, then, his face hidden in shadow. “Arianrhod has been reduced to ash.”

A chill splashed over Sylvian like a bucket of water. “Like Ailell?”

Edelgard snarled. “You did know!”

“No, I didn’t fucking know. I’m from  _ Faerghus. _ We all know the stories about Ailell. After Arundel told me about the Immaculate One, I did some digging. Did Rhea really burn it down?”

The professor put a hand on Edelgard’s shoulder and she deflated. “It wasn’t Rhea and her family. It was destroyed by javelins of light from the sky.” She signalled for the soldiers holding Sylvain to release him.

“That’s what the legends say about Ailell.” He rolled his wrists and stretched out his elbows. “Are we sure they just couldn’t see her?”

Hubert offered him a hand and pulled him to his feet. “The burning of Ailell is presumed to be an attack on Garreg Mach that was diverted. The destruction of Arianrhod is undoubtedly Arundel’s work. Revenge for Cornelia.”

“Of course he does it when we’re fully committed in Faerghus. I have to get back and ensure Felix doesn’t kill anyone else. I know Lysithea has some theories about where the dark ones’ base is. We can discuss it with her tomorrow.”

“Tell no one what happened. We are still deciding what story the army will hear.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't write smut, but if you want to write/imagine it yourself:  
> Service top Felix who likes to mark and be marked, praise kink sylvian. You're welcome.
> 
> Also I drew Hubert's poor mage buddies from the last scene: [link link link](https://twitter.com/duveraun/status/1248733739317964801?s=20)


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy easter

“I don’t like this,” Bernadetta said. She was trying to hide her little grey palfrey behind Sylvain’s mage horse. “The Tailtean Plains is where the War of Hereos happened. And now we’re here with all of the Relic Weapons again. I don’t want to be part of a legend.”

_ A little late for that, _ Sylvain thought. The air was heavy with a thick mist that threatened to turn into a full deluge. He gave Bernadetta his best smile. “You can always write your own version.”

“Gi-Giu! That’s mean. You’re awful.”

He laughed. “Stay with Leonie and Lorenz. They’ll keep you safe. I have to go check in with El and get in position.”

“Stay safe.”

“No need to worry about me. Felix will kill me if I do anything stupid.” He waved her off and made his way through the army. Most people called him Giuseppe or von Enns, but a scattered few, mostly defectors from Faerghus, called him Sylvain or Gautier, in ignorance of how his surname burned his soul.

Ferdinand waved him close with a serious expression on his face. He dismounted and together they strode up to where Edelgard, Hubert and the professor were having a last-minute discussion over the map.

“Giu, good. These are our speculative placements for the Church and Kingdom’s forces. Rhea is here, parading herself as ‘Lady Seiros’ with people honestly falling to their knees when she walks by. It’s disgusting.”

Sylvain nodded and examined the map. At a glance, the placement was good, painfully good. “Are you sure you’re not overestimating them tactically? Without Rowe and Rodrigue, Dimitri doesn’t have any tacticians. And according to Ingrid and Annette, he’s barely coherent long enough to give orders and get through ceremonies. I doubt he could come up with this.”

“While that is true,” Hubert began, leaning over the map and adjusting a few battalions, “Rhea has more than enough experience to position their troops properly. Our greater concern is the presence of demonic beasts.”

Sylvain cocked an eyebrow at him and then grimaced as the mist against the mobile command tent turned to rain. “While I’m pretty sure Arundel does want us to take heavy losses so he and his people can take over Fodlan once this is over, I find it hard to imagine him giving them Crest Stones for it.”

“Not to bring up bad memories, but Rhea is more than aware of the ability of Crest Stones to turn humans into horrible monsters. When the professor and I spoke to her after your brother…” Edelgard squeezed his hand. “She knew. And the Holy Tomb is full of Crest Stones. I’m sorry for what I’m about to ask, but I want you and Ingrid to warp across the plain and take out Dimitri as quickly as possible. Without their King and with demonic beasts ravaging their own lines, the battle will be over before it’s begun. Hubert, Ferdinand and I will do the same to Rhea. The risk is astronomical, but the alternative is Fodlan losing an entire generation to this war.”

\---

Sylvain knew something was wrong the moment he materialized in front of Dimitri with Ingrid. While he was surrounded by the royal guard, Dedue was nowhere in sight. He had no time to say anything, however, since he had to charge an archer taking aim at Ingrid’s pegasus. He heard Dimitri yelling about ghosts and traitors and his dead father, but couldn’t spare him any attention. Until he felt Areadbhar activate, he couldn’t look away from the soldiers packed tight to protect their liege. Ingrid worked above him, holding back reinforcements. Luin felt like a sunburn on his shoulders as it responded to her Minor Crest of Daphnel. 

Only when his last guard fell, did Dimitri raise his spear. It activated with the Crest of Blaiddyd appearing over Dimitri’s head. The strike hit the Lance of Ruin hard enough to knock Sylvain off his horse, but honestly he’d stayed mounted longer than he expected. He rolled to his feet, hoping the mud caked on his armor wouldn’t slow him too much.

“And so you have crawled out of hell to fight me yourself,” Dimitri snarled. The soft lines his face had even at Garreg Mach were gone, lost in the mad twist of his mouth and horrible light in his eyes. “I may deserve it, but I refuse to give you what you came for! Not until I have her head!”

Sylvain’s stomach churned as they clashed again. With their relic weapons locked together, Sylvain was close enough to see where the rain mingled with sweat on Dimitri’s face. Nothing of his childhood friend was left. “Dimitri, surrender, please. You don’t have to die here.”

The Crest of Blaiddyd blazed like a sun over Dimitri’s head and he broke the Lance’s shaft in two. “I am already dead!”

Before the horrible weapon could reach Sylvain, he thrust out his left hand, covered in a purple-spell that entered Dimitri’s chest and exited his eyes and mouth in a sick cloud of blood and magic.

“I’m sorry, Dima,” Sylvain said. He snatched the head of the Lance from the ground, slung Areadbhar over his back and reached up his hand for Ingrid. As soon as she had him, he warped them back behind Imperial lines. There, he fell to his knees and wept.

\---

The end of the war was like being stuck in a nightmare. Rhea had retreated from Tailtean, showing her complete lack of interest in human life, but then she became worse. Even before transforming into her creature form, her true beastly nature emerged when she set all of Fhirdiad on fire. Without Felix fighting stone-facedly at his side, he would surely have collapsed with his childhood on fire around them.

When she did transform, Rhea mindlessly crushed Gustav under one of her massive claws. None of her army noticed or cared. Annette’s broken scream was the only proof it had even happened. Catherine died on Thunderbrand’s own blade, thrust there by Lysithea’s magic. Cyril, the poor Almyran boy that went from a slave of body to slave of mind, was shot down by Ignatz, an arrow in his throat. 

Sylvain, Felix, Hubert and Ferdinand charged with Edelgard and the professor for the horrid, white beast, but before they reached her, fighters in cardinal’s robes burst apart with terrible screeches of rending flash as they transformed into smaller white creatures. Hubert and Ferdinand went left to Sylvain and Felix’s right. Edelgard and the professor cut a path directly forward with the Sword of the Creator.

Rhea died with a soul-tearing howl that heralded the collapse of the white beasts her people had turned into. Sylvain dropped his lance and grabbed Felix into a punishing hug as ash from the burning city continued to fall around them like ghoulish snow. “It’s over. It’s finally over.”

“We’re getting  _ two _ cats.”


	13. Chapter 13

Five years after the War of Unification, the war was actually over. Between insurgents, rebellions, famine and disease, it took fifty-six months for Sylvain to settle down. He and Felix made a home out of a nice house near Castle Fraldarius. Gautier and most of Itha were made officially Sreng territory two years post-war and Sylvain was on-call ambassador. His official name was Sylvain von Enns, which fooled no one, but made him feel better.

The former Kingdom territory was split between Felix and Ingrid, with the latter governing out of a mostly-rebuilt Fhirdiad. Ashe lived in former Duscur territory, helping what survivors he could find rebuild on the Empire’s wallet. Annette was the director of the northern branch of the Imperial School System, which mostly operated out of repurposed castles and hand-in-hand with the orphanage system. 

In former Leicester territory, Lorenz and Hilda bickered over almost everything in an effort to maintain the spirit of the Alliance. They allowed the Eastern Church to exist, but it paid stiff taxes and was forbidden, by law, from interfering with or contributing to Imperial politics in any way. There was no formal alliance with Almyra, but the fighting at the border stopped and everything seemed to be on hold until Claude became king.

As promised, Ferdinand was Prime Minister, at least until Edelgard thought she could make everything into elections. Hubert and Lysithea split their time between destroying the dark ones, whom Hubert still insisted on calling Those Who Slither in the Dark, and removing the second of her two Crests. Linhardt contributed to the research, but only for about one month in six as he and Caspar roamed Fodlan, sending orphans to Dorothea and reporting issues (and causing issues).

Felix had his two cats, giant beasts named Kyphon and Loog. He claimed it was because Glenn had loved those legends, but Sylvain heard him call Loog ‘Boar’ when he knocked things off of the table, so he knew it wasn’t the entire truth. They didn’t talk about the war to each other, though Marianne appeared every six months for long conferences she claimed were just casual conversation and that she was only there to visit their horses.

Mercedes would arrive once the worst of winter was over to have them watch over a small child Sylvain knew he would have no choice but to fall in love with and adopt. It was something she’d been threatening since the official end of the war that Felix had finally agreed to. He claimed Sylvain needed something to keep him busy so he’d stop interrupting his real work of governing, but the truth was that the wounds on his heart had finally closed enough to let it open to someone else.

In truth, Sylvain expected to have a sword thrown at his head any day in a Felix-proposal. That he could be the one doing the sword-throwing didn’t occur to him, but he had used up all of his brain fighting the war and pretending to be someone he liked.

He was reading in bed with Kyphon sprawled across his lap when Felix joined him. He had a smear of ink on his cheek and he hadn’t bothered to fix his hair after a day of meetings and letter-writing. “I told you not to wait up.”

Sylvain closed his book, marking his place with a piece of teal ribbon Felix had cut out of his hair after it tangled too badly for his frustration. “And I told you I was going to anyway.”

“Pardon me for thinking you’d listen for once in your life.”

“Mmhmm, you usually shout for me to leave forever, so it’s a good thing I don’t.”

Felix paused, halfway into climbing into bed and wilted. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Sylvain leaned over and kissed him before dragging him the rest of the way onto the bed. “I know you don’t mean it. And I did put you through six years of calling me Giuseppe.”

“Idiot. I still can’t believe anyone fell for that.”

“I’m a good liar.”

“You thought you had a magic face.”

“I love you, too, Fe.”

“Yeah, yeah, I love you, just put out the lamps. I’m tired.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! 
> 
> please comment


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